Leading US non-scripted production company Half Yard Productions, a Red Arrow Studios company, today announced a partnership with former VP of Production and Development and host of The Dirt Christo Doyle. Public School Productions, based in Washington DC, will be dedicated to developing and producing authentic, first in its space content, full of rich, dynamic characters.
During his Emmy Award winning, 17-year career at Discovery Communications, Christo Doyle developed and produced some of TV’s biggest brands. The partnership will see Half Yard put in place production infrastructure for Public School Productions and includes plans to co-develop projects.
Dirk Hoogstra, CEO, Half Yard Productions, says: “At Half Yard Productions we are always looking for new stories to tell and Christo has an incredible track record of bringing new stories and characters to our screens. We can’t wait to help build Public School Productions into a new storytelling powerhouse.”
Christo Doyle, Founder, Public School Productions, commented: “It’s exciting to be finally going out on my own and to use years of storytelling experience at Discovery to build Public School Productions into a leader in cutting edge content. The goal is to make great TV with great people.
Collaborating with Half Yard means that Public School can hit the ground running and we are excited to start unveiling our upcoming slate of projects in the coming months.”
Whilst at Discovery, Christo built the long-running series Gold Rush into a behemoth for the Discovery Channel, growing it into the top-rated series of all time for the channel and an international sensation with over 220 million unique viewers worldwide each season.
Christo also developed, produced and hosted the Gold Rush spin-off talk show, The Dirt, as well as producing highly rated brand extensions Gold Rush South America and Gold Rush White Water.
Other series Christo had a key role in at Discovery include American Chopper, Monster Garage, Overhaulin’, American Hot Rod & Biker Build Off, Miami Ink, Dirty Jobs, Jungle Gold, Pacific Warrior, Flying Wild Alaska, Alaskan Bush People and Dual Survival.
He earned an Emmy for his work on the Lance Armstrong series Race 2 Replace and served as Executive Producer of the Emmy nominated Steven Spielberg/Dreamworks series The Rising: Rebuilding Ground Zero.
Half Yard Productions is a leading US producer of factual and factual entertainment including TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress, which is currently in its 19th season, and multiple spin-offs including Say Yes to the Dress America; and new shows including Relatively Evil for Investigation Discovery, and Dino Hunters for Discovery.